Up2U and Oliver, you are wasting your breath. "Group Think" is rife in the ex-pat community, and remember their only source of information is via the Bangkok Post and/or The Nation, both of which are mouthpieces for the Establishment. Then the ex-pats feed off each other via The Wankers' Forum (Thai Visa). Most of them have no idea of what Thailand was like before about 2000, if that, and speak as if corruption was something invented by and imposed on Thailand by the wicked Dr Thaksin.

Thailand has been one of the most corrupt countries in the world as long as anyone can remember. All Thaksin did was take away the levers of corruption from the traditional elite by realising he could entrench his position by winning election after election. He did that by instituting populist policies that appealed in particular to the most populous and most alienated (from Bangkok) part of the country, the North and North-East. What the traditional elite has done throughout their many military and judicial coups this century is to re-calibrate how the spoils of corruption have been divvied up.

At least the latest coup is some senses the most politically honest, since Prayuth has said in effect "Our side can't win elections so we're going to abandon them" also known as "Democracy doesn't work for Thailand" - exactly the line that lego is parroting.

And speaking of short memories, latintopxxx's comment "the only reason I preferred the Thaksin bunmch was that they didnt mess with the sex tourist trade" is complete and utter nonsense.